Immigration Fairy Tales

Erick Erickson
Thu, 29 Jan 2026 23:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Last Saturday, federal border patrol agents shot and killed progressive protestor Alex Pretti in Minnesota. After his death, a video surfaced from a week earlier where Pretti had spat on border patrol agents and violently kicked an agent's car.

Some on the right are, through implication, suggesting Pretti got what he deserved. Some on the left suggest agents killed Pretti on Saturday as an act of revenge for the prior encounter. Both views are wrong and unfortunate.

We know that Pretti died after being disarmed by border patrol agents. It was a tragedy. It did not have to happen. We also now know that Pretti's gun did not discharge as some speculated.
Updated: Fri Jan 30, 2026

Last Saturday, federal border patrol agents shot and killed progressive protestor Alex Pretti in Minnesota. After his death, a video surfaced from a week earlier where Pretti had spat on border patrol agents and violently kicked an agent's car.

Some on the right are, through implication, suggesting Pretti got what he deserved. Some on the left suggest agents killed Pretti on Saturday as an act of revenge for the prior encounter. Both views are wrong and unfortunate.

We know that Pretti died after being disarmed by border patrol agents. It was a tragedy. It did not have to happen. We also now know that Pretti's gun did not discharge as some speculated.

Pretti was active in the operations to disrupt the border patrol and immigration agents and was not merely observing. Had Governor Walz and Mayor Frey helped immigration agents, instead of rallying mobs, Pretti would be alive. But we can add something else now, too.

Had local police detained Pretti in his last altercation and arrested him for interference, or had federal agents done so, he'd be alive now. Ignoring the small problems can lead to big problems. Had the system worked to deter law-breaking, Pretti would be alive.

Pretti died, probably thinking he was on the right side of history. But the side he was on created an immigration nightmare in the country, allowing an open border, then protecting illegal immigrants over American citizens and resident aliens who are our neighbors.

The Left, perversely, keeps protecting the non-white lawbreakers in the nation, convinced that the nation and our system of government is systemically racist. They have built up a mythology that has become deeply corrosive to their worldview and to systems of justice. They believe everyone is part of a class, or caste and individuals are tied to their classes. Responsibility and virtue are corporate things to the left, not individual things.

In this vein, the Left has created a series of lies they tell themselves. First, the country is stolen land, so somehow the nation is illegitimate. Second, the people who stole the land created a racist system that must be torn down. Third, non-white people are oppressed and, therefore, virtuous. Fourth, crossing the border into the stolen land is not a crime (it actually is a misdemeanor the first time in and escalates after that). Fifth, there are now so many illegal aliens here that they cannot be deported because that would be too complicated for the systemically racist nation of land thieves, who are not capable of doing so.

Essentially, the Left, through former President Joe Biden, said the border was sealed. Then, when shown that the border was not sealed, they said Congress must act to seal it. Then, when President Donald Trump sealed it without Congress doing anything, they said there are too many illegal aliens here and we cannot deport them all without wrecking the economy, local communities, etc. And, even if we could, the systemically racist nation built on stolen land has no moral right to do so.

One cannot argue with the logic of insanity and emotion. Instead, we must continue deportations. Pretti and Renee Good are just two more Americans dead due to a string of immigration problems unleashed by Joe Biden and the Democrats that they have been unwilling to fix. The list of names of other Americans killed, raped, carjacked, burglarized or otherwise harmed by illegal immigrants is longer. The irony is that the shortest list now is the list of illegal immigrants killed by the federal government.

Alex Pretti got in over his head and became involved in a struggle against law enforcement. But he was also fearfully and wonderfully made in the likeness and image of the living God, who raised him from the dust of the Earth and stitched him together in his mother's womb.

A mother and a father have lost their son. Others have lost a friend. We can note that he was an agitator and an activist, and Mr. Pretti got into something he could not get out of. It ended tragically. We can also let the dead die and let others mourn them without slandering them. Then we can continue deportations.